To increase their student service standards, for starters, UBC is aiming to respond to your emails in 1 or 2 days and keep a continuous document file on your visit with an advisor. The plan is to have one Enrolment Service Professional (ESP) assigned to 250 students by September 2012 (for current Grade 12s) in their “N3 (Name Not Number) initiative” in order to cultivate a more personalized ‘family-physician’ style of clientele service as opposed to one of a ‘walk-in clinic.’ Despite this medical analogy sounding a bit treatment oriented, the university ensures that it has each student’s best interest – or more specifically his or her individual profile – at heart.

Speaking of being more personal about an applicant’s profile, UBC is using their newly added Personal Profile on the online Vancouver Campus direct-entry application (i.e. Science, Applied Science/Engineering, Arts, Sauder School of Business, Kinesiology) in the hopes of broadening their admission range. With the exception of Music, Dental Hygiene and Midwifery, which require separate supplementals with later deadlines, this hopefully helps to streamline their supplemental applications across faculties. Although it is not clear what the weighting between academic grade average and the personal profile is, an applicant’s GPA will still be considered first before their individual qualities and experience, which also is key in the entry evaluation. The Personal Profile with its set of short essay responses of 200 words each must be completed and submitted together with the online application by January 31st. Where verification of extra-curricular activities, background experience and personal achievements is required, random checks of references are done to make certain that the application is credible and reliable.

By focussing on the applicant’s entire academic and personal profile and moving to a ‘broad-base’ admissions approach, last year UBC was able to admit students with lower GPAs than those from the previous year and still achieved an overall growth of 32% in applications to their West Point Grey campus between 2005 and 2010.

Upcoming event dates for UBC Science and Engineering:

• Sat. October 22: Geering Up! High School Conference (10:30am – 4pm)

• Tue. November 1: “Discover Science & Engineering Evening (5 – 9pm)

UBC Sciences, Engineering, Forestry, and Land & Food Systems

• Sat. November 26: “Engineering Open House Fair (9am – 4pm)

RSVP for all events @ www.engineering.ubc.ca/connects

http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/story.cfm?id=6624

McMaster launches new virtual tour

Want to see McMaster University’s beautiful campus but can’t make it in-person? 

The new online tour provides more multimedia, interactivity and information for visitors to tours.mcmaster.ca. The portal allows prospective students to take a “Guided Tour” designed to emulate an in-person walking tour, create a personalized tour (based on categories relevant to prospective students) or explore various campus hotspots.

“The new virtual tour will benefit many prospective students,” said Andy Moonsammy, a liaison officer with Student Recruitment & Admissions. “The tour makes it easier for students to see McMaster, particularly those living far away and not able to visit, as well as those who might not realize what’s in their own backyard.”

The new virtual tour has already been explored by visitors from various communities across Canada and countries such as China, India, Brazil and New Zealand.

“Seeing a campus often solidifies a student’s decision to attend a university,” said Paula Johnson, assistant registrar and 18-year veteran in the recruiting industry. “Our new tour allows us to bring the McMaster campus to an entirely new group of students who may not have even considered us before.”

We encourage our students to really think about what they are looking for in their education and how they will put their tuition dollars to work.  Usually when we ask students at this time of year, “Why do you want to attend University X?” or “Why is University X your first choice?”- the answers we receive are overly general and tend to be about the university’s aesthetics (“It is a pretty campus.”) or location (“It is close/far from home.”).  Additionally, we find many of our students pick a faculty randomly or by feedback from friends.   We tease them at this point and encourage them “to defend their decision in an educational court of law”- to which they usually smile and respond, “Melinda, I know nothing about the academics there.”  We then set on a mission to change this in two steps.

One we make a list of values or priorities for their education and their post-secondary search.  Values need to be educationally related- such as class size, quality of instruction, range of majors offered, opportunities for coop or internship, international study options, and/or specialized features of the university curriculum.

We then enter a period of research.  We encourage students to move away from the admissions pages of the websites; because at this point, they have selected their courses and have a solid understanding of what marks they need.  Instead, we want them on the FACULTY pages learning more about what it means to study a particular major at a specific university.  What courses will they have to take?  What special opportunities are available?  What values does the site portray?  What students are highlighted?